12. Nathan Sr
NATHAN SR
SEVEN YEARS LATER, THE DAY OF
Portland greets me with wet pavement, a full inbox, and a conference agenda designed by someone who hates sleep.
I step out of the car at the hotel entrance and adjust my cuffs, then I give the valet my keys and my room name like I’m handing over control on purpose.
My phone keeps vibrating with calendar reminders, and I keep ignoring them until I’m inside.
Hawthorne sent me here to speak on trauma systems, quality metrics, and inter-department coordination. The crowd is the usual mix of administrators, surgeons, board members, and people who like to say “stakeholders” with a straight face. I can do this in my sleep, and I often have.
It’s been six years since Athena disappeared, and I still think of her every day.
Not in a romantic, soft-focus way, not as a nostalgic ache I can file away, but as a constant irritation under the skin.
I’ve learned how to function around it, and I’ve learned how to keep my face calm when her name appears in my mind without invitation.
I’ve gone on dates. I’ve gone on enough dates that I can predict the entire evening by the appetizer course, and I can do it while smiling and making the other person feel chosen.
I’ve sat across from intelligent women with stable careers, clean histories, and the kind of compatibility that makes therapists nod, then I’ve walked them to their cars and felt nothing afterward except relief that the performance is over.
None of it has ever felt like her.
Athena didn’t fit neatly into my life, and she didn’t try to.
She walked into a hospital full of ego and panic and made frightened children calm, and she did it with humor sharp enough to cut through bullshit.
She looked at me like I was a man, not a title, and I broke that trust in one dinner conversation I still replay with a kind of disgust that never fades.
Nate has gotten worse with time. He’s louder now, and he’s more polished on the surface, which makes the rot underneath it more difficult for strangers to see.
He treats entitlement like a personality trait, he treats women like accessories, and he treats my refusal to fund his nonsense like a personal betrayal.
He still believes he deserves what he wants, and he still believes he’s the victim when he doesn’t get it.
Cindy has tried to circle back into my life like she’s returning to a house she never moved out of.
She calls, she suggests dinner, she plays the warm ex, and she shifts into threats the second she hears “no.” I have refused her every time, and she continues to act surprised that refusal is a permanent state.
I still think she has something to do with how quickly Athena vanished from my life, but I don’t have the evidence to connect the dots.
The first day of the conference drags. I speak in the morning, I sit through panels in the afternoon, and I shake hands with people who want their photo with a trauma surgeon.
I eat dinner with colleagues who talk about budgets and “culture,” and I keep my face neutral while my mind keeps slipping sideways into older memories I didn’t invite.
It’s 5:18 p.m. I leave the last panel with my name still on my badge and a polite smile still on my face, then I walk out of the hotel before anyone can funnel me into drinks. I don’t text anyone, I don’t explain, and I don’t pretend I want to network.
I head into the city on foot with my jacket open and my hands in my pockets, then I let my feet choose streets that look lived-in instead of designed for tourists. Portland feels softer than Boston, less sharp around the edges, and it should make it easier to breathe. It doesn’t.
I pass restaurants filling up for dinner, then quieter blocks with porch lights and strollers, and I realize I’m moving toward green space without planning to.
The park entrance comes into view while the sun is still up, and the sound of children carries across the grass.
Parents sit on benches and pretend to relax while their eyes never stop tracking movement.
I slow near the edge of the path and scan the area without thinking, the same habit I use in trauma bays when I’m assessing a room.
Then I see Athena sitting on a bench near the swings with a sketchbook in her lap and a tote bag beside her.
Her hair is longer, darker, pulled back in a loose knot that looks like it was done quickly then forgotten.
She’s dressed casually, jacket, jeans, sneakers, and she looks like this park is part of her routine.
The sun has cast her in gold, she’s never been so remote and beautiful at the same time. She could be a ghost, or a dream.
My body stops before my mind finishes the sentence.
The world narrows to her profile, her hands, the way she tilts her head as she listens to something off to the side.
I stand still with my hands in my pockets and my shoulders squared.
The last thing I want is to startle her, and the first thing I feel is a sharp, irrational need to see if she’s real.
An excited giggle beside her pulls my attention away, and I look down at a little girl beside Athena.
The child leans toward the sketchbook and asks a question with her whole face.
Athena answers and starts drawing, her pencil moving quickly while the little girl watches like an art critic with sticky hands.
Athena’s expression softens when she concentrates, and it’s the same expression I used to see when she explained a procedure to a frightened child.
The girl says something, then Athena pauses for half a second and draws something, her mouth twitching as if she’s trying not to react too strongly, then she keeps drawing and keeps listening.
The child keeps talking without taking a breath, animated and confident, as if her story controls the world.
Athena laughs under her breath.
The little girl tilts her head to study the drawing, then she looks up, and I see her eyes clearly for the first time.
Storm-gray. Not a vague resemblance. Not the kind of gray you can rationalize into coincidence.
The exact shade that shows up in my own face, the exact shade that used to make nurses call me intense even when I was being polite.
My legs lock in place.
I don’t step closer. I don’t let my body pull me into their space.
I stay where I am with my hands in my pockets and my shoulders squared, and I force myself to breathe through my nose until the moment stops tilting.
The child blinks slowly at Athena and smiles, and her grin appears suddenly and takes over her entire face.
My mind jumps backward six years without warning.
Dinner. Athena’s careful voice. Her question about being a father that I treated like a trap. Her face tightening when I answered. The silence afterward that I accepted as closure.
She wasn’t asking for what could happen if we continued the relationship. I thought, at the time, she wanted to know if there was a chance we could ever have kids.
She was looking for safety, and I offered cruelty dressed up as honesty.
Athena wipes strawberry off the child’s wrist and says something that makes the little girl beam again.
The child’s curls are dark and stubborn like her mother’s, and Athena’s fingers move through them with automatic tenderness.
The more I look, the more I see how much she’s got in common with me.
She has the same mouth, the same eyes, the same stubbornly angled brows.
Everything about her face reminds me of myself, except the hair and her smile. Those are Athena’s.
A father pushes his son on the swings across the park, and the little girl watches for a moment with a thoughtful expression. She turns back toward Athena and asks something that makes Athena’s pencil slow slightly, then Athena answers.
The child brightens instantly.
Athena’s smile appears and disappears quickly, like she doesn’t allow herself to sit in it for long.
The park stays ordinary around them while my head turns into a room full of alarms. I stand there and take in the details with the same attention I use in surgery, except this is not a body on a table, it’s a life I never knew existed.
The child leans into Athena’s shoulder, sticky and confident, and Athena doesn’t flinch.
I feel anger rise, and it has nowhere clean to go.
It aims at Athena for hiding this, then it swings toward me for earning the silence in the first place. It settles on the version of me who sat at a table and talked about women using children as leverage while Athena tried to decide whether to trust me.
The child hops off the bench and runs toward the grass with a squeal, joining a pack of kids attempting to organize chaos into a game. Athena watches her with an expression that looks both exhausted and proud, then she turns back to the sketchbook and keeps drawing like this is a normal afternoon.
I keep my distance. I don’t want this to become a scene in front of families and strangers and children. I stand at the edge of the path and watch Athena pack up the sketchbook, fold the blanket, and gather the tote like she’s done this a thousand times.
The sky shifts toward that softer color that signals dinner time, and the park begins to empty in slow waves. Athena calls out, and the little girl comes sprinting back with the reckless confidence of a child who believes her mother will always be exactly where she left her.
Athena takes her hand.
They start walking.
I let them get far ahead before I move.
I follow at a distance that keeps me out of her line of sight, and I adjust my pace when she pauses to fix the child’s shoe. I cross the street when they cross, then I slow when they slow, and I keep my hands in my pockets so I don’t look like a man reaching for anything.
I hate this.
I hate the part of me that feels forced into it, and I hate the part of me that still wants answers more than it wants to be polite. Still, I keep going, and I keep my distance, and I watch Athena lead her daughter through the neighborhood like she’s walking a route she trusts.
The building they enter is a few blocks from the park, and the moment I see it I understand why she chose this city.
It’s quiet. It’s anonymous. It’s full of people who don’t care about Hawthorne’s hierarchy or Nathan Clarke’s name.
Athena unlocks the door, the little girl darts inside, and Athena follows with a practiced glance down the sidewalk.
She doesn’t look far enough back to find me.
I stay on the opposite side of the street and watch the entrance close, then I stand there longer than I should. My body feels full of motion and restraint at the same time, and I don’t like either.
I return to my hotel without thinking about the route.
The lobby smells like cologne and polished wood. The front desk staff greets me like I’m harmless. I nod, step into the elevator, and let the doors close while my mind keeps replaying storm-gray eyes and strawberry smeared cheeks.
In my room, I drop my keys onto the desk and sit on the edge of the bed without taking off my shoes.
My phone lights up with conference updates and text chains from colleagues, and I ignore every one.
My hands rest on my thighs, then I lace my fingers together like I’m trying to keep myself from doing something reckless.
I’m in Portland for work.
Athena lives here with a child who looks like me.
Both things are true.
I don’t know how to hold them at the same time.
I stand and pace once across the room, then I stop and force myself to think in sequence. Athena has a routine. Athena has a child. Athena deserves privacy. I am not entitled to crash into her life and demand anything, even if the child’s eyes make my throat tighten every time I picture them.
Then another thought surfaces, colder and more practical.
Athena didn’t vanish for nothing.
She ran for safety.
If she has been raising a child alone, she has been carrying risk alone too.
I check the clock.
I wait.
Not from patience, not from respect alone, but from the need to avoid hurting that child.
I picture bedtime routines, tiny teeth brushing, stories read on a couch, the final muttered “love you” that makes a mother’s face soften in the dark.
I picture Athena doing all of it, then I picture myself absent from every part.
Time passes.
The city outside my window keeps moving. Cars slide along the street. Lights in neighboring buildings turn off one by one. The world settles into night while my mind refuses to.
I shower, dress in fresh clothes, then stop in front of the mirror and stare at my own eyes. Storm-gray. Familiar. Unforgiving. I watch myself for a long beat and realize I’m afraid of what I’ll do once I hear Athena’s voice again.
I leave the hotel and walk back toward her building with controlled pace.
The streets are quieter now. Porch lights glow. Windows show television flicker. I keep my hands in my pockets and my posture calm, and I track the blocks until I’m standing on the sidewalk across from her entrance again.
The building looks the same as it did earlier.
Still.
Ordinary.
No sign of danger.
No sign of welcome either.
I cross the street and stop at the front door.
I lift my hand.
Then I lower it again.
My head runs through the possible outcomes quickly. Athena could slam the door. Athena could call the police. Athena could tell me to go to hell and mean it. Athena could look at me and see a threat to the life she built, and I would deserve that reaction.
I lift my hand again and knock. I wait with my hands at my sides and my shoulders squared, then I hear movement behind the door. A lock turns. The door opens.
Athena stands there. For one suspended second, neither of us moves.
Her eyes meet mine, and the heat of recognition flickers across her face before she clamps it down. She looks older than I remember, not worn, just sharpened by time and responsibility. Her hair is down now, and her posture shifts slightly as she takes in my presence like she’s measuring risk.
Then her gaze shifts past me toward the hallway behind her shoulder, and I follow it.
The small girl stands there rubbing sleep from her eyes, curls messy, face half-hidden behind a yawn. She blinks slowly then looks directly at me with those eyes, and my heart sings and breaks at the same time.
The recognition is instant. My entire body goes rigid.
Fury flashes through me so fast it steals the ability to pretend I’m calm, and the sound of my own voice surprises me with how low it comes out. “Athena,” I say, and her name tastes like six years of restraint breaking.
My gaze snaps back to hers, and I don’t soften what comes next. “We need to talk,” I tell her. “Now.”